Sony signs up to O2's charger-less scheme

Sony has become the latest manufacturer to sign up to O2's sustainability campaign to sell all mobile phones without a charger by 2015.

The Japanese phone maker will sell its Xperia SP handset without a charger as part of a trial. The handset will come with a USB to micro-USB cable. Sony joins HTC, which had two trial with O2, and Nokia in trialling the scheme.

O2 CEO Ronan Dunne said: 'We have trialled this scheme with two major handset launches and have been able to show our partners that consumers are ready to buy phones without the chargers – if the environmental benefits are explained clearly to them. Sony backing our campaign is a major step towards making chargers out of the box the norm in the UK and I very much hope that we will see others joining us over the course of this year.'

Catherine Cherry, marketing director for north west Europe at Sony, said: 'There is a clear willingness amongst customers to listen to the environmental message, so from our perspective pilots like this are essential to reducing environmental waste. Networks and handset manufacturers have to take a lead on this area and so we were eager to run a trial with one of our leading smartphones. If it works well, we will obviously consider rolling this out more widely.'